I want to engage with it, and not resist it. It is going to have its way with me anyway. 🙂

But, and it’s a Big But, how do I know it when I see it? How do I know what is authentic Expansion (coming from my inner essence, or True Self), and what are the Shoulds, Coulds, Oughtas, or the Next Shiny Thing?

For me, it is a kinesthetic sense. Expansion that originates from my True Self feels like a deep grounding of This-Feels-Right-ness within me.

I’ve practiced tuning into this inner essence long enough that I know when something feels right/is right.

But it is a continual dance with life, checking in, pausing, and resetting my course to align with what is calling me from my deep sense.

What is “mine to do”? What is it time for now?

These questions are beginning to be a more unconscious feeling and response now, but in the beginning I needed to stop and pause and go within, many times during a day, in order to stay aligned with the true course that I want to be on.

And, this process and practice applies to everything for me, right down to the mundane and minute as well as the “big questions” of life.

It has become a path of sensing the “inner impulse of knowing”.

Many times, I don’t know the answers to all of my questions. This way of being in the world doesn’t guarantee that every answer comes to me just because I want it to, and when I want it to.

I’ve had to learn that in order to respect true Expansion, I must respect true Expansion’s timing. So I spend a lot of time in the Land of Not Knowing. But I have found that if I hold my questions gently and curiously, without attachment, the answers come right when I need them.

Expansion has been a wise teacher this month. I’ve re-learned some things that I already knew but had been neglecting, and I learned some new things. This seems to be the way that it has been going with the 12 Words this year.

Now…drum roll please…it is on to July’s word: Flow. Maybe I will just let Expansion flow, and then be done for the month. 🙂 I am sure Flow has more in store for me than just that. Stay tuned.

I have a core belief that as humans we naturally expand through our life experiences.

But what is different as we engage consciously with our own expansion process?

How do we do that?

What is required of us, to do that?

How do we invite expansion and open ourselves to new or greater possibilities?

How much do we choose to engage in experiences that will stretch us?

These are the questions that are currently active in me about expansion, and I don’t have many answers yet.

This month, I’m participating in an art challenge called 30 X 30 Direct Watercolor. I’ve committed to create and post a new watercolor painting every day for 30 days, without using any pencil or ink lines.

I’ve participated in a number of art challenges, most of which involve a commitment to do a specific kind of art every day, and then to share it on social media with the other participants in the challenge. I always learn and grow from these challenges. My art, and I, always seem to expand from the experience, often in ways that I cannot anticipate.

This challenge is kicking my butt because it is a much bigger challenge, for me, than its predecessors. It is also giving me seemingly endless opportunities to expand my focus and my skill as an artist, and it seems to be doing the same for the other participating artists. I am having a lot of fun with it, along with some frustrating growing pains.

It has made me think about the nature of expansion, and about our role in it.

Sometimes expansion just happens to us, as a result of our life circumstances, and we react to it.

Sometimes we make something happen, by our sheer will and determination, and we expand.

And then there are those times in life when expansion feels like pure magic: Life unfolds naturally and we respond with joy, and it all feels like a seamless and fluid dance. To me, that’s the best kind of expansion.

This morning, the woods are alive with large flocks of migrating Robins and Red-Winged Blackbirds. Their song fills the air, and it lifts my spirits, after months of quiet mornings.

We are in the Inbetween Time again, as the seasons begin to transition from Winter into Spring. One day there is snow, and the next, the sun is warming the earth and the bulbs are beginning to break through frozen soil.

There is a going back and forth, in these Inbetween Times.

Sometimes there is a going back and forth for us in our lives, when we are going through transitions, and this is OK, as we begin to grow in the fullness of who we are becoming.

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